Substitute "insurance companies that have already sucked you f'n dry for years with no real return" for "the house." There. That's more accurate.

So I've learned that the hospital up here where I work is refusing to negotiate with our insurance company, who is strong arming the hospital.

Basically what this means is starting next month if I'm t-boned by some idiot up here around work and end up going to the hospital I'll owe 100% of the bill, until they can switch to a new insurance company. Lovely. It also means the doctor I just visited a few days ago and happened to actually like probably won't be seeing me anymore. Even better!

Know what? Forget reform. We shouldn't reform, we should nuke the entire system, piss on the ashes and start new.

I do pay for my own. What on the face of the planet makes you think you're paying my doctor bills? We don't get sick, hardly ever. When we do? We pay.

I'm sick of this "we have to pay for you because you don't buy into the same system that's screwed us." It's a Liberal Talking Point ~ A one size fits all kind of finger pointing away from the real problem, designed to make me feel guilty about being opposed to the mandate. I don't.

I can't be any clearer on this, but let me try. You. Do. Not. Pay. Our. Medical. Bills. If your insurance is screwing you with higher premiums every time you open the envelope, your beef should be with them and their obscene profit scheme. I'm not the reason they suck your money. You're not dumb enough to believe that my not buying their product means they have to charge you more. I know you're not.

So, what happens if you have a catastrophic accident or illness? Do you have the 100s of thousands of dollars saved up for that? That is where the problem is. I'm very healthy myself, but there are folks out there just like you who would be completely wiped out if they did get critically ill and, yes, I am subsidizing those folks. This bill is not a panacea for everyone, but it is a start in the right direction in getting folks adequate health care at a more reasonable cost. Keeping things the way they are now is not acceptable.

Edit: I do think that you should be able to opt out without penalty, though.

This bill is not a panacea for everyone, but it is a start in the right direction in getting folks adequate health care at a more reasonable cost.

I don't see where that reasoning comes from. Your health care expenses will not fall. If they do it will be because we're paying more taxes to subsidize it, so it will be a wash if we're lucky.

The big pharma and insurance companies just see a bigger deeper well to dip from, so it will do nothing to bring down the cost of health care, it will make it worse, wait and see. Until they rein them in nothing will change. All of this effort should be going towards that goal, but that change would be stepping on too many toes and require real leadership, not this dog and pony popularity show for votes this fall that we have going on now.

So, what happens if you have a catastrophic accident or illness? Do you have the 100s of thousands of dollars saved up for that?

Yep, that's where a lot of our inflated premiums come from. The emergency rooms are filled with people with no insurance who never planned to have a catastrophic illness or accident. I could say I never plan to have a car accident but I don't think they'll drop the requirement that I have insurance.

So you don't have insurance at all? Rather than have you depend on an emergency room you'll now have a federally-funded community clinic you can go to free of cost or you can buy a full policy from the provider of your choice with a cap on the premium you will pay.

Here's the bill's credit cap/income chart:

If you're at the bottom of the chart you pay less than $30/mo. to insure a family of 4. If you're at the high end of that chart you pay a several hundred dollars a month, and I bet that's way better than anything you can get now.

If you make more than $88,000/yr there are tax credits that will apply too.

The mandates exist because if insurance companies are regulated that they cannot deny coverage, and pre-existing conditions won't matter ... people will game the system and only buy insurance when they are already sick and need immediate care. If everyone buys in at some price level then the system works and taxes aren't levied to support the subsidies. When everybody buys in the government regulates that premiums stay low. That's the real "government controlled healthcare" in the bill that the GOP doesn't like.

edit: Did you see the Countdown reports from the free-clinics they raised money for? Each clinic saw 1000's of people who had medical needs but hadn't seen a doctor in years (or ever). Each of those clinics cost several $100Ks to sponsor. People lined up for days to get in. Lives were saved by treating easily preventable problems.

Thanks to Bernie Sanders and Obama the two bills allocate $23Billion to community clinics for the next 5 years for people at risk or too poor. Think about it.

I am starting to change my mind about to the no side <-- Once I heard that if you don't have medical insurance you will be fined something like 900 bucks ? Much like car insurance , if you don't have one it is a fine PLUS its a Jail-able offense <-- is that where we are going with this ? ? This alone turned me off .

The plan started off great - I guess to many whacky changes later ?

I would like ;A list you can choose from for yourself and from an employer . Currently here the employer has only 1 plan . My last one was Blue Cross , my new one has HMSA only.

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